You've probably been wondering what we've been up to at GoldFire Studios since we moved into our new office early last month. If you've been following our blog for any length of time, you probably know that I think HTML5 is the future of online gaming, and that is exactly what we've been working hard to put into practice.

I'm pleased to announce that after several months of hard work, the new poker and blackjack tables for PokerRPG have now been released from beta testing. These tables show off some of the amazing new technologies we've been experimenting with, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

These tables have technically been in the works for almost a year, if only indirectly. We began work on the GoldFire Network last August as I started a focussed effort to make the "open web as a gaming platform" our new company goal. We delivered on the first phase of that promise in March with the network, and this release is just the next step.

The new tables use many of the same technologies found in the network: Node.js, MongoDB, WebSockets, etc. They also introduce some new things like hardware accelerated animations and HTML5 audio. And, as you could see in the video above, these technologies allow us to do some really cool things with real-time gameplay.

However, this is only half the story, and I feel confident that the announcements we make over the rest of this year and into next spring will blow you away. Unfortunately, we aren't quite ready to talk about any of that yet, but I can say that the time for the browser to take center stage in the gaming world is closer than most people think, and we plan on making that known in a big way.

Until then, I hope you enjoy the new poker tables. A lot of hard work and sleepless nights went into making them as smooth and bug-free as technically possible.

What do you think the future holds for browser-based games? Use the comments below to proclaim your prophecy to the world.